Reinventing Government

Three broad conditions are largely blamed for the inflationary
spiral of the 1970s:

(1) Increases in commodity prices, especially oil and food;
(2) An overheating economy characterized by an expanding money
supply and tight labor markets, which resulted in wage inflation;
(3) Government intrusion into many areas outside its traditional
role, and an associated regulatory burden and "red tape." Today
we are already seeing commodity prices (oil in particular) rise
and the labor market is tight as a drum. However, a lot of people
are unaware of the re emergence of government similar to the conditions
of the 1970s.

The main reasons that many people are not aware of the growth
of government are simple:

(1) the federal government is running a surplus so people are
not as focused on the size of government and;
(2) the Clinton/Gore administration tells us that government is
shrinking and that they have "reinvented" government. They are
lying. Seven years ago, when the Clinton/Gore administration was
just taking office, the number of nondefense government employees
stood at 18,727,000

(Source: Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Today, the number of nondefense government employees stands at
21,012,000, a 12.2% increase over 7 years. The point is, by this
measure, government has certainly grown, and at the fastest rate
in 20 years (the last time inflation was a real problem for our
economy).

Another way to measure the size of government is through the current
expenditures of the federal government. According to the Bureau
of Economic Analysis of the Commerce Department, government hasn't
been reinvented, it just keeps on growing, and growing, and growing...
When the Clinton/Gore administration was just getting started back
in the first quarter of 1993, Federal Government Current Expenditures
on a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate stood at $1,449,800,000,000,
or just under one and a half TRILLION dollars. In the first quarter
of 2000, that number stands at $1,790,500,000,000, or just under
$1.8 TRILLION.

Government has not been reinvented and the government has not
shrunk. Keep in mind that government expenditures increased by
more than $300 billion over the past seven years despite the fact
that our armed forces are about half the size now as they were
just a decade ago. Those of us who do not recognize this may one
day soon wake up and find rolls of red tape to contend with. Twenty
one million federal employees have to spend $1.8 trillion on something!